Quote

I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.

Thomas Browne

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Thomas Browne
Age: 77 †
Born: 1605
Born: October 19
Died: 1682
Died: October 19
Author
Philosopher
Physician
Physician Writer
Writer
London
England
Sir Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Tell
Ugly
Elephants
Cannot
Shapes
Outward
Form
Bears
Inward
Best
Figures
Logic
Created
Express
Beauty
Bear
Toad
Call
Forms
Toads
Action
Actions
Elephant

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Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.
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We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.
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There is no such thing as solitude, nor anything that can be said to be alone and by itself but God, who is His own circle, and can subsist by Himself.
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Were the happiness of the next world is as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.
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Things evidently false are not only printed, but many things of truth most falsely set forth.
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He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.
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We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will unteach us tomorrow.
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Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.
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For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.
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Think not silence the wisdom of fools but, if rightly timed, the honor of wise men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity.
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Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes.
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Art is the perfection of nature, ... nature is the art of God.
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Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.
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Gardens were before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth.
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A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.
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It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
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To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our belief.
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The discourses of the table among true loving friends are held in strict silence.
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Sleep is a death, O make me try By sleeping, what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.
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